


All the Kids

by Sylv



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all began with a stalker...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Kids

Roxas is eleven when he meets Axel.  
  
Axel is the boy standing on the grass with long hair pulled back into a low ponytail and a piercing through his right eyebrow who simply demands everybody's attention. He isn't smoking as far as Roxas can see, but a cigarette would look perfectly at home between two of his fingers.  
  
Roxas is a short sixth grader bemoaning the fact that he now has to live with his cousin as he trudges across the front lawn of his middle school. He tries to leave as quickly as he can from the dreaded place, but somehow he catches the eighth grader's eye -- invisible as he may be.  
  
"Hey there, spike face, how the  _hell_ are you? Enjoying your new school?"  
  
Roxas turns around to stare at this boy with disbelief, the one who is grinning crookedly at him. He can't find the words to speak; it's a challenge to weigh his irritation against the probability that he would get beaten up by this guy for insulting him.  
  
Axel's grin widens and he slings an arm around the younger boy's shoulders. "What's the matter my blonde little hedgehog? Too dazzled by my sexiness to speak?"  
  
Roxas' blue eyes narrow and he finds that he suddenly doesn't care whether or not this guy punches him, "You wish. My grandparents are sexier than you."  
  
Instead of being offended, the redhead merely laughs. "Oh, the tiny tot speaks. How about you take me to your house and show me pictures of your sexy-ass grandparents?"  
  
"How about you leave me alone now, and we never speak to each other again."  
  
Axel follows him home anyway.  
  
\---  
  
Axel becomes a regular fixture in Roxas' house, like another piece of furniture that swears a lot and tries to convince him to pierce his tongue. Roxas tries to keep him away at first, seeing as his aunt and uncle had taken him in and treated him like their own son, but Axel doesn't take hints, even when they aren't hints.  
  
So it is something of the three of them -- Axel and Roxas and Sora -- some sort of trio that they have together at Sora's house. And then, when Riku happens to be over at the same time as Axel, it morphs into a group of four. A strange, and rather hostile group, but a group nonetheless.  
  
Riku and Axel like to bite each other's heads off whenever they can, and Sora admits to his cousin at one point that he is a bit scared of Axel. Roxas laughs and texts Axel as soon as he finds out, and Sora retaliates by throwing his cell phone in the toilet.  
  
Axel leaves middle school about a year after Roxas meets him, and he lords it over the other three as much as possible. Riku is the year after that, and although he isn't quite as cruel about it, it is clear that he has no desire to stay. Roxas and Sora finally graduate when Axel is fifteen and a sophomore. They celebrate with their family by going out to dinner, which Axel and Riku somehow manage to talk their way into joining.  
  
\---  
  
It is a brilliantly sunny day in September during Roxas' first year of high school when Axel shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the afternoon. Sora is the one who answers the door, and once Roxas hears his friend's voice, he joins his cousin in the doorway.  
  
"Hey, guys," Axel greets them hoarsely, attempting his usual cocky grin. This fails, mostly because his split and bleeding lip is marring the effect.  
  
"Okay Axel," Roxas rolls his eyes and wonders if this black eye is the kind that will turn a lovely array of greens and yellows after a while. "Who did you pick a fight with this time?"  
  
"My parents," Axel replies, his hand tightening on the backpack that the blonde just now notices.  
  
Roxas is silent in his shock, and although Sora doens't quick understand what is going on, he is the first of the two to react, "Do you need a place to stay, Axel?"  
  
The boys smiles and then winces, shouldering his way into the house.  
  
\---  
  
When Axel crashes on the couch that night with easy permission from their parents, Sora and Roxas stay up late and talk about what must have happened. Sora is of the opinion that his parents must have finally gotten angry enough to just kick him out, but Roxas speculates that Axel was fed up with having to deal with them and ran away.  
  
They never ask him, and Axel isn't telling.  
  
So now Sora's parents have three boys instead of one, and they have to deal with the noise, the broken decorations and furniture, the yelling, the fighting and the fact that Axel is now sixteen and doing what he likes with his life.  
  
Their goal is to straighten him out while keeping Sora, Roxas and themselves, sane. He isn't allowed to go through their liquor cabinet or use his mature looks to buy cigarettes or keep any girls in his room overnight. This doesn't stop him from doing all those things, but he has to learn to hide his actions well, and Sora and Roxas don't have the heart to tell.  
  
Roxas, despite all of his complaints, is having a blast with his best friend living in his house. Sora gets used to it as well, although Axel can still intimidate him into either doing what he wants or getting so angry and flustered that he storms off.  
  
Riku, however, thinks that they're all insane for being able to stand each other, and he escapes to Kairi's house whenever he feels like they're being more idiotic than usual. This, of course, is unacceptable to Axel, who feels that they must all 'suffer through each other'. Roxas is eager to torture the older boy however possible, and Sora wants to see another of his best friends.  
  
They're all in.  
  
\---  
  
Roxas braces himself against the outside of the house and lifts himself up with grunts of extertion to the open window. He hooks his fingers around the inside of the ledge and begins wriggling his body this way and that to try and slip through the small opening.  
  
He's about halfway in when he hears a voice nearby say, "Um... hello?"  
  
The boy's head jerks up to be met with a girl washing her hands at the sink of the bathroom, staring at him where he is hanging partially in and partially out of her house. He vaguely recognizes her from school, but he can't put a name to her face.  
  
"... Hi," he says to her, wondering what one is supposed to say in a situation like this. "I'm Roxas. I'm looking for Riku -- we saw him go into this house."  
  
She blinks at him a few times before jerking her head towards the door. "Uh, okay, Roxas. I'm Kairi, and Riku's in my room down the hall when you turn right."  
  
Roxas takes this as permission to enter and tumbles the rest of the way into the bathroom. He moves around her, trying not to think about how awkward this situation is, and bolts out of the door, down the hall, into her room.  
  
When he gets there, Axel is already inside, having used a different window leading straight into her bedroom and going through her dresser drawers. Riku looks like he is getting ready to kick the redhead's ass, and Roxas hears a door slamming somewhere else in the house, immediately followed by Sora's voice calling, "Kairi, it's me!"  
  
Roxas suddenly wonders if they're going to be arrested.  
  
\---  
  
It's sort of like love, but it isn't.  
  
Kairi gets folded into their group, so now there are five of them, four boys and a girl, and they still make just as much of a mess as they used to. Kairi didn't know what she was expecting when she became friends with Axel and Roxas as well as Riku and Sora, but it was definitely not what she got.  
  
Axel is perverted and horny almost all of the time, and he takes any chance that he has to feel her up, but she doesn't freak out because she can tell that he's kidding. She thinks. Roxas forces her to fine tune her sarcasm radar, because in the beginning she can never tell whether or not he is being serious.  
  
She now has this rather annoying problem of being friends with practically all of the boys that any of the girls she knows have crushes on. Yuffie, Namine, Olette -- whenever they confess to liking someone she replies with, "Oh, I'm friends with him; you really don't wnat to like him."  
  
Then she gets stuck playing matchmaker. Which isn't so bad in and of itself, she supposes, except that her guy friends always take it like  _she_ is the one who likes them, and then that leads to all sorts of problems, especially with Axel.  
  
\---  
  
Kairi is pinned underneath Axel's body while his hands wander dangerously close to the waistband of her jeans, and she wonders how she got into this situation. "Axel, I swear--"  
  
"So  _Yuffie_  thinks I'm hot, huh? What else does  _Yuffie_ think, Kairi?"  
  
He leans down for a kiss, but never reaches his destination because a sneaker thumps into the side of his head with enough force to send him tumbling off to the side of the girl beneath him. There is laughter in the background as a gruff voice snaps, "Stop sexually harassing her, Axel."  
  
Kairi looks up to see Riku's face looming above her, and a hand outstretched to help her up. She takes it gratefully, grinning.  
  
Sora is sitting on her bed, laughing so hard that his face is beginning to turn red, and Roxas is leaning back against her bed on the floor, looking through Kairi's new CDs, rolling his eyes at the antics of his friends.  
  
"What the  _fuck_!" Axel snarls, leaping up with a hand to his head. "Riku, you fucktard, what the hell was that for?"  
  
As a counter to Axel's furious gaze, Riku's is cold. "What the hell do you think that was for, you asswipe?"  
  
"Now kids, play nice," Sora chortles, and even Roxas is finding it hard to keep the smile off of his face.  
  
Kairi snuggles up next to Roxas, grinning as he responds by wrapping an arm around her shoulders and insulting her music tastes, just as Sora leans his forearms on top of their heads to have in on the conversation. The fight between the other two becomes comforting white noise.  
  
Kairi is content.  
  
\---  
  
She knows that one day the world is going to make her categorize her boys firmly in her head; no overlapping allowed. She always knows that this means she will probably have to give some up so that she will be able to keep the others.  
  
Kairi tries not to think about that as their high school years drag on and they complain about how much that they want to leave the place. She knows that she would rather grab onto the thread of time and stop it, freezing life where it is right now, because she never wants things to change.  
  
However, Kairi doesn't think about that as they all make plans to go camping for the weekend up in the mountains. Her parents try not to worry about her getting felt up in the middle of the night by one of the boys, and Kairi tries to remind herself that their fears are baseless; she would probably be able to, if Axel wasn't coming with.  
  
Kairi savors the time with her boys, counts each precious moment as they come because she realizes, even if they don't, that this will not last forever.


End file.
